4 hours ago
5
Name: Men’s shirts.
Appearance: Increasingly skimpy.
You’re looking nice today. Thanks, I’m freezing.
Now you mention it, you are a bit blue around the lips. Maybe you should tuck your shirt in? I literally can’t. I’m wearing one of the new waist-skimming shirts that are all the rage for men right now.
Brrr, chilly. Well, it’s hot news, actually. The New York Times reported on the shrinkage of men’s tops, with New York fashion week featuring “models in tees and sweaters shrunken nearly to the navel” and “a button-up shirt that stopped well above the waistline”. Meanwhile, in the real world, retailers are selling loads of shorter men’s shirts.
So is this shrinkflation, but for menswear? With cynical fashion companies cutting costs and calling it a trend? Well, people are also doing DIY versions, cutting the tails off their shirts using TikTok tutorials, so it does seem genuinely popular. Fashion-forward chaps are wearing skimpier tops to balance out their baggy trousers. “Jelly to the big pants peanut butter,” the New York Times called it.
That might be the most American sentence ever written. Would you prefer “Marmite to the large trousers cheddar”?
No, the ratio is off – you need a 50/50 sandwich. Maybe prawn to mayo? We’re getting off track. The point is, there’s a new silhouette in men’s fashion, and people are wondering what it means.
Well, that’s easy: nothing. But it’s not the first instance of men’s clothes getting skimpier. Crop tops for men were big fashion news in 2023 and stuck around, and we’ve just lived through a “thigh guy summer”, with lots of male leg on display. Google searches for Speedos have increased 41% year on year in the UK; and some high street shorts boasted 5in, and even 3in inseams.
Sounds eye-watering. That’s not a look anyone but Paul Mescal should attempt, surely? Mescal helped popularise short shorts but loads of men have started flaunting their thighs – and now they’re adopting short shirts, too.
OK, I’m intrigued. What’s your theory? Well, it’s partly about bigging up your body in a gym-obsessed age. “The biggest flex at the moment isn’t a designer item. It is your body. People want to show how hard they have been working out,” stylist Luke Day explained back in May. Skimpy shirts and crop tops highlight toned stomachs (reborn as a “male erogenous zone”, according to the NYT), and short shorts show you never skip leg day.
What else might be happening? We’re arguably seeing a “queering of men’s fashion”, as a Financial Times podcast last year described it, with men of all orientations enjoying being more playful and generally fabulous in how they dress.
Nice! Plus skimpy fashions use less fabric, which is good for the planet. Not buying new clothes at all would be way better but shh … the fashion police will hear us.
Do say: “Who wears short shirts?” “We wear short shirts!”
Don’t say: “Hypothermia’s so hot right now.”
